Following France’s defeat in the Franco-Prussian War in 1870–71, French patriots feared that their country was in danger of becoming a second-rate power in Europe. Decreasing birth rates had largely slowed French population growth, and the country’s population was not keeping pace with that of its European neighbors. To regain its standing in the... more...

In a tense, crowded thirty-three days in the autumn of 1799, Napoleon Bonaparte organized a coup and made himself dictator of France. Yet his position was precarious. He knew that France would accept his rule only if he gained military victories that brought peace. James Arnold, in this detailed and compelling account, describes the extraordinary campaigns... more...

'I return to Paris in five days. Stop washing.' So wrote Napoleon to Josephine in an age when body odour was considered an aphrodisiac. In stark contrast, the Romans used to bath for hours each day. Ashenburg's investigation of history's ambivalence towards personal hygiene takes her through plague-ridden streets, hospitals and battlefields. From... more...

More than a third of a million men set out on that midsummer day of 1812: none can have imagined the terrors and hardships to come. They would be lured all the way to Moscow without having achieved the decisive battle Napoleon sought; and by the time they reached the city their numbers would already have dwindled by more than a third. One of the greatest... more...

At the gates of Moscow, Napoleon's Grand Army prepares to enter in triumphal procession. But what it finds is a city abandoned by its inhabitants - save only the men who emerge to fan the flames as incendiary fuses hidden throughout the empty buildings of Moscow set the city alight. For three days Moscow burned, while looters dodged the fires to... more...

1812: The Great Retreat - the third and final volume in Austins magisterial trilogy - concludes the story of one of historys most disastrous campaigns. The author's previous books brought the Grand Army to the head-on battle at Malo-Jaroslavetz after withdrawing sixty miles from the burnt down capital, and for the first time in his... more...

The British campaign in the Low Countries in 1813-14 in support of the Dutch revolt against the French is one of the lesser-known campaigns of the Napoleonic Wars, but one, which the great historian of the British Army Sir John Fortescue wrote that it was impossible to understand the Waterloo campaign without a knowledge of. The book deals with all... more...

The 12th Light Dragoons served throughout Wellington's campaigns in the Peninsula, most notably at the Battle of Salamanca in 1812, and later at Waterloo where they suffered heavy casualties supporting the Union Brigade's famous charge. The principal source for this book are the papers of Sir James Steaurt - Colonel of the regiment for almost... more...

At Waterloo, some 70,000 men under Napoleon and an equal number under Wellington faced one another in a titanic battle. Alessandro Barbero's majestic account combines British and French histories to give voice to all nationions involved. The Battle is a masterpiece of military history. more...